


Flowers for a King's Grave

by Melilla



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:08:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melilla/pseuds/Melilla
Summary: A retelling of Theseus's story, in which Technoblade learns the hard way that heroes never get happy endings.Chapter title taken from New River, by the Oh Hellos.
Relationships: Phil & Technoblade
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	1. every grain that we've counted claims that even the mountains can change

**Author's Note:**

> This entire story is canon-divergent from the start. There is no taking over the world, for one thing, and the conflict with Business Bay is there, but not as important as it was. Overall, most of the events that took place didn't happen in this fic.

Snow drifts softly down to cover the hills that surround the heart of the Antarctic Empire, covering the head and shoulders of the statue whose knife-like silhouette cuts sharply across the horizon. The statue faces east - it’s customary for the statues of the dead to face west, towards the setting sun. But the statues of the lost, the statues of the uncertain, are allowed to face east.

The figure depicts a man wearing a crown, hand on the hilt of a sheathed sword. He stares past the hills and the kingdom and into the sky. In the summer, when the sun never sets, his face is perpetually painted gold.

A man climbs the hill to where the statue stands, wind threatening to pull his bucket hat off his head. His wings are raggedy and one appears to have been broken recently. When the wind blows, it pulls at his feathers and his messy hair. 

The man stands at the foot of the statue for a moment, and then places a bundle of lavender flowers on the ground. He closes his eyes and lets out a quiet sigh. From the bag at his waist, he takes out a crown.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and letting the feel of the snow falling guide him towards some kind of impossible peace. “I know what I promised, but I- I can’t take your place. Nobody could ever take your place.”

He places the crown next to the lavender and walks away. The wind howls and howls in his wake. He takes a last look at the kingdom he built. 

He leaves the world. A single feather drifts from one of his wings and lands on the ground near the path and is quickly covered in snow - the last remaining trace of his presence buried. It’s fitting, in a way, that both his and his friend’s bodies aren’t at the graves they made for each other.

***

The sacrifices take place every year. Apparently, they’re a consequence of a crime that was committed years ago by the Antarctic empire, and insurance against the monster that lurks in a neighboring kingdom. Technoblade has trouble hiding the horror and shock on his face the first time he’s told about them. Every year after that, he grits his teeth and slumps under the weight of the crown.

After three years of this, Technoblade turns to Phil and asks when it will stop. Phil shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” his friend says.

“I can’t do this anymore!” Techno paces the length of his room, tearing hands through his carefully braided hair. Phil winces as it comes undone.

“I’m sorry,” Phil says. Technoblade knows that he doesn’t know what else to say. He knows that what his friend means is that he doesn’t have a choice.

Technoblade sighs, stops pacing, sinks down onto his throne. He wracks his mind for anything he could do to somehow stop this atrocity.

“What if,” he suggests. “I go as one of the sacrifices? They can’t not accept me - they’ve asked for my finest warriors, and I’m probably the best fighter in the empire.”

Phil hides a smile - for some reason, he always seems amused when Technobalde talks about his skill level. It’s not like he’s boasting, anyway, though he doubts his previous statement would sit well with many of the nobles in their empire.

“You would die,” Phil says, and tries unsuccessfully to hide the worry on his face. “That’s the whole point of the sacrifice.”

“No,” Technoblade says. “I could, I don’t know, hide a weapon, or a sword, or I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to wear armor, but I could probably kill their monster anyway, and then we wouldn’t have to give up any of our people again.”

Phil chews his lip.

“That’s… an option,” he admits, and Techno can tell that he’s trying to find an angle to argue from without admitting how worried he is. “But, as your advisor, I should warn you that this might not be the best for the empire. After all, if you die out there, this kingdom will be without a leader or an heir.”

Technoblade waves his hand dismissively.

“You can be my regent,” he says, monitoring Phil’s face at his words. “And if I don’t come back, then you can take over. I’ll even name you as my heir so none of the council members throw a fit.”

“I-” Phil sighs. “Techno. You don’t have to do this. It’s only seven people.”

Technoblade wants to roll his eyes at his friend’s worry, but he knows that that would only serve to make him more frustrated.

“Exactly,” he says instead. “It’s seven whole people.”

Phil’s jaw sets, and Techno knows that he’s won, even as Phil opens his mouth to try to make one last futile argument.

“I could go in your stead,” Phil says. “I could try to fight the monster, and that way if I fail, the empire wouldn’t lose its leader.”  
Technoblade shakes his head. It’s not as if he doubts Phil’s skill level - of course he doesn’t. He has every confidence that Phil could kill whatever he’s fighting. Still, the idea of sending his advisor and closest friend as a sacrifice in his place makes his stomach churn.

“Techno…”

“Phil,” he says. “Come on. I’ll be fine.”  
Phil sighs and nods. Technoblade can tell that he wants to argue more, but one of the benefits of being as stubborn as Techno is is that everyone tends to give up on changing his mind after a while.

  
  


***

Technoblade lounges on his throne, a stark contrast to the tense, nervous man he was only hours earlier, the man that only Phil gets to see. Phil stands slightly in front of him, wings opened just enough that they shield both of them. Normally, an advisor standing in front of their emperor would be considered treasonous, but these are special circumstances. Technoblade unfolds the list that Phil helped him write out earlier.

When Technoblade is finished reading out the list of people, Pete speaks up from one corner.

“Techno,” he says, “that was only six names.”

“I know,” Technoblade says, trying to focus on rerolling the scroll and tying it up again. He never really understood how Phil was so good at tying knots and bows. The ribbon he’s attempting to use has already gotten caught in his claws and he takes a moment to untangle it.

“Maybe I’ve grown senile in my old age,” Pete continues. “But I was under the impression that the monster required  _ seven  _ people to feed it.”

“I know,” Technoblade says. He clumsily rolls the list up and manages to loop the ribbon around it. Fancy knots are overrated, anyway. He hands it to Phil, who steps back to take it before resuming his position in front of the throne.

“So…” Pete says. “Who’s the last person?”

Finally, Technoblade looks up, his attention now fully on Pete. To his credit, Pete holds his ground, and after a moment, Technoblade sighs and looks away.

“I’m the last sacrifice.”

“You know you’ll die, right Techno?” Pete says. 

“I know,” Technoblade says.

Technoblade pretends not to notice the quiet mutters and exchanged glances that follow his announcement.

“Technoblade, I don’t know if this is a good idea-” Wisp starts.

“This decision,” Technoblade interrupts, “is final.”

He takes his crown off, ignoring the muffled gasps that come after, and stands up. Phil takes it from him when he hands it over, though his friend avoids putting it on, holding it only by his fingertips, as if it could burn him if he wasn’t careful.

“Gather the people on the list,” Technoblade instructs. “We’ll leave tonight.”  
Then, his cape flowing behind him, he leaves the room. Phil follows him out.

***

“That was very dramatic,” Phil notes, braiding Techno’s hair as he stares out the window and over the ocean. Techno laughs.

“I don’t think they approved of my choice,” Techno says. “I’m worried… what if they don’t support you? Respect you as emperor?”

“It won’t matter,” Phil says. “They only have to tolerate me until you get back.”

Technoblade doesn’t correct his wording. He doesn’t inform Phil that this is risky, that there’s a chance he won't’ make it out alive. He’s sure that Phil already knows.

“They all seem overly worried,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “Reminded me of you.”

Phil chuckles drily.

“Of course they’re worried,” Phil says. “You’re a good king, probably the best they ever had. They care about you.” (“I care about you” Phil doesn’t say, but Techno understands anyway.)

Techno sneaks a glance over his shoulder at Phil, who’s pretending to be busy tying up his braid. 

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know,” Phil sighs. “It’s just - I just - it’s going to be dangerous. I don’t know what I’d do, if you - if you-”

“Listen,” Technoblade says. “I’ll be alright. But - just in case - here’s what we’ll do. We’ll sail out with black sails. If we come back with white sails, that means that I’m alive and well, and that we’re victorious. If the sails are still black when we get back-” Technoblade pauses. “At least you’ll know beforehand, right? At least you won’t have to wait until someone breaks it to you.”  
Phil nods, and for once, Techno can’t read his face.

“I should go now,” Technoblade says, glancing out at the sun, which has started to set. He stands, and Phil stands with him.

“I’ll see you in a couple months,” Phil says. His tone is bright, but Techno can hear the strain underneath. Technoblade smiles, eyes sad. Before he can leave the room, Phil steps forward and embraces him, wings forming a cocoon around them both.

Techno doesn’t want to let go. Technoblade knows he has to.

“It’ll be okay, Phil,” Techno says again. Phil holds him tighter.

When Techno finally pries himself from Phil’s arms, he can feel Phil watching him as he goes. He glances back once and burns his friend’s face into his memory - the way he smiles, the way he holds himself, his perfectly preened wings. Techno promises himself he’ll remember all of these things in case this is the last time he ever sees him.


	2. see me bare my teeth for you, see me bare my teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A maze is defined as "a network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has to find a way." It's easy to get lost in one, and even when you find your way out, things aren't always as they seem.
> 
> In which Technoblade fights his nightmares, and finds more once he's done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic isn't going to be totally accurate to the original myth. In the future, things are going to diverge a bit from it for plot reasons. Also, I'm so bad at writing fight scenes so I apologize for this chapter.
> 
> Chapter title taken from Who are you, really? Mikky Ekko.

The journey is long, and Technoblade spends most of it by the railings of his ship, feeling the ocean spray slap his face. HIs hair has started to lose its bright pink color by the time they reach their destination - a cliffside that has been carved out to form a cave, a labyrinth. The entrance is barred, but it opens for them as they arrive. Stony faced guards ask for their weapons, and Techno hides his sword. Without his armor, he feels naked, vulnerable, but he swallows his discomfort.

They enter the cave. In front of them, dozens of passageways stretch on and on. Technoblade turns to his people.

“Alright,” he says. “I want you guys to hang around here, near the entrance, and hide. I’ll find the monster, dispatch it, and then come back and get you. Don’t enter the maze unless you absolutely have to, and if you do, stay together.”

They nod, and he turns back towards the entrance. He picks a hallway at random and sets off down it, keeping his pace confident and brisk. He tells himself that he isn’t scared. Whatever lives here, he can take it.

The maze is dark and cold. Torches flicker on the walls nearest to the doorway, but the spacing between them grows and grows as the hallways go on until there’s only darkness and the occasional skittering of rats or wind disturbing the gravel beneath his feet. Technoblade backtracks a bit, wrenches a torch from the wall, and continues on, its smoke coiling in front of him and stinging his eyes.

The creature is nowhere to be seen. From what Techno’s been told, it usually comes and kills and feasts on the sacrifices but he can hear nothing, see no trace that there’s anything other than himself in this place.

Maybe, he thinks, while he was wandering, the monster went back to where his soldiers were and killed them. Weaponless and virtually defenseless, they would be easy prey. He tells himself that it isn’t true. He tells himself that there’s no way something got past him - he would have heard it. Unless, of course, it took one of the many other corridors, unless he went in the wrong direction, unless he got turned around in the dark - 

He shakes his head to clear those thoughts. No. He’s in the right place. His people are fine.

He pauses for a moment to catch his breath, holding up his torch. The tunnel has widened into a small circular room. His attention is caught by a pile of bones and rusty armor near the walls. He starts to approach it to investigate, but before he can, a shape launches itself out of the shadows and slams him to the ground. His torch is knocked out of his hands and extinguished.

He picks himself up, drawing his sword quickly. The runes glow faintly in the darkness, but not well enough to see by. He looks around, heart beating faster. Now that he listens, he can hear the sound of heavy breathing from somewhere in the room, the sound of footsteps crushing bones.

He holds his sword in front of him, glancing around as his eyes adjust to the darkness. Whatever in here with him moves softly, too softly for the weight that had slammed into him moments ago. Blood pounds in his ears.

He hears a swish of air and jumps to the side just as something lands where he was standing second before. He scans around for a clue as to where the thing is now, backing up until he hits the wall behind him. He can’t make out anything in the dark. Ever so softly, he edges along the wall, searching for a passage, for some escape route, somewhere he can go and catch his breath before he faces whatever this is.

He hears the sound of metal scraping against the ground before something is thrown at him - a piece of armor crashes into his stomach. He doubles over for a moment, eyes searching for any form of movement in the darkness.

So. Whatever this is can see well enough to aim, and can hold onto things well enough to throw them. Technoblade is a good fighter, and he’s good enough to know when he’s outmatched. How can he possibly fight something if he doesn’t even know where it is, _what_ it is?

Still, this isn’t unsalvageable. He hasn’t lost yet. He can still turn the tides.

A footstep lands near him, and he freezes. Quietly, quietly, he approaches the source of the sound, raising his sword. He isn’t sure whether or not it can see him, whether or not it’s just playing a game with its prey. He doesn’t care - this is the last chance he’ll get. Once he thinks he’s close enough, he swings.

His sword connects with - _something_ , and whatever that thing is, it counts as alive enough to catch fire from the enchantments he painstakingly carved into his blade. In the sudden burst of flame, Technoblade can see what he’s hunting (or what’s hunting him), and it’s horrifying.

A skull, skin stretching over bones, thin enough that it’s torn in places. Empty eye sockets and long, twisting horns. Teeth or fangs or tusks, jutting out from its jaw. Long, long, skeletal limbs stretching and stretching and groping to reach him and - is it blind? It must be blind. Its head (is it a head, or just an empty skull?) turns this way and that, as if searching for his location. He can’t tell where its thin, grotesque body stops and where the shadows that seem to cling to it like spiderwebs in an old fireplace, like vines hungrily consuming a rotting building, start.

He recoils from it instinctively, raising his sword as if to shield himself. His foot lands on an old piece of armor, and it _scrapes_ and _shrieks_ as it drags across the floor. For a moment, he’s just standing there, caught under the blind gaze of the creature’s empty eyes. Before he can even think to move, it lunges towards him, impossibly fast, and plunges a rusty sword it picked up into his stomach.

Technoblade gasps in pain, looking up at it with wide eyes.

It’s still burning, and the flames that are spreading across its skin seem to hurt it at least a little bit. As he collapses against the wall, he manages to land another hit with his sword, and it hisses as his blade meets its body. As he watches, its skin seems to melt and smolder until it's just a pile of bones that collapses in the center of the floor. The fire is out, and he can’t see anything.

He doesn’t know if this means it’s dead or not. He doesn’t know if it will come back. He slips further down the wall he’s leaning on until he too is a crumpled shape on the ground.

He’s wounded badly - he knows that. Blood spills over his stomach and seeps through his clothing. It’s getting harder to think clearly. He imagines Phil, sitting behind him, fingers combing through his hair. The room is completely dark, but he swears he can see something like fireflies or lanterns when he squints his eyes just right.

“Hello?” his voice is quieter than he’d like it to be, and more slurred. Is that really how he sounds like? He almost laughs at himself. “Hello!”

“Technoblade?” he hears faintly, coming from - coming from - 

“Hello?” he mumbles. He can’t remember who he’s speaking to. There’s something vitally important he has to tell someone, something about sails. “Hello?”

The next time he tries to speak, his words come out quietly from between papery lips.

His soldiers find their king, bleeding and wounded on the floor, a skull staring up at them from a pile of bones beside him. The flickering light of their torches illuminates a growing pool of blood.

“...white sails… if I…. live,” the emperor mumbles. The soldiers exchange concerned glances and carry their king out of the labyrinth. He seems beyond saving, but they have to at least try. All of them have seen the wonders that potions can work, though it might be too late by now.

***

Technoblade, in a bed lined with sandy sheets and humid air, sleeps, and dreams. He dreams sometimes of his empire, and his crown. He dreams sometimes of wings and feathers and a friend - a friend - Phil. He dreams mostly of fighting the thing in the maze again and again in a thousand different ways.

Sometimes, he’s wearing armor and has a lantern that isn’t knocked out of his hand, and when he comes face to face with the monster, he can see it more clearly than in the flickering glow of a wildfire. Sometimes, he has no weapon and can only shield his face with his hands as the thing attacks him from all angles, the rusted armor it throws at him cutting his arms. Sometimes, it has the faces of the people he sent to die to it, and they scream at him as they kill him. Sometimes, it has wings that erupt from its back and a worn bucket hat.

No matter what, he always loses. No matter what, he always ends up bleeding out on the floor while the remaining sacrifices search through the labyrinth to find him. Sometimes he’s able to call out for help. Mostly, he’s not. Mostly, when he does, no one comes.

A small part of him doesn’t believe those last dreams - he is an emperor. He is a _king._ He has people and warriors and _friends_ who wouldn’t abandon him. He’s never really alone. He’s never had to be alone.

But dreams don’t follow any strain of logic, and he can only watch as the creature with Phil’s shadow bears down on him again and again.

***

When his ship returns to the Antarctic Empire, its sails are black and Technoblade is not with them. In his grief at the sight of the sails, Phil leaps from the cliff he used to keep watch on, wings only barely breaking his fall. He steps down, and a new emperor is chosen.

***

  
The kingdom doesn’t feel right, without its leader. There is a hole in it now, overflowing with grief and scrabbling hands and reaching and reaching and _reaching_. There is a hole in it now, twisting and twisting into its heart, wide and dark and cavernous, and there’s no one who can fill it.


	3. Beneath the height of noon, the pillars of the empire will be burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technoblade pieces himself back together, with only the company of the people he's killed to guide him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, this chapter was very difficult for me to right. I'm not entirely proud of it, but I think it had to happen. 
> 
> Chapter title taken from O Sleeper, by the Oh Hellos.

Technoblade wakes up, surrounded by trees whose branches grow far higher than any of the stunted, gnarled ones they tried to raise in the arctic. For a moment, he just lies there, squinting up at the canopy of leaves above him as reality slowly returns to him. He blinks, disoriented, and then tries to sit up. He’s thirsty and starving and weak, but he manages to push himself upright.

He’s alive. He’s  _ alive. _ He can smell evidence of potions, his clothes slightly damp from where they must have splashed him. Everything aches. There’s a buzzing in the back of his mind that coalesces into voices when he focuses too hard on it. He doesn’t focus too hard on it.

Instead, he forces himself to his feet. If he’s alive, then his crew must be alive, and they must be somewhere. He should look for them. He needs to find them, but first, he follows the far more enticing sound of the bubbling of a creek somewhere.

The water is cool, and he’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to purify it first, but he’d rather die from poison in the water than to thirst. After he drinks, the splitting headache recedes slightly, and he can almost think.

He remembers a monster and shivers, wrapping his arms around himself. For the second time, he thinks of the sacrifices he made to remain king, the people he sent to their deaths in order to hold onto the weight of the crown.

One person shouldn’t have that much power. One person shouldn’t be allowed to send people to die, to give away countless lives to achieve their own ends. It’s wrong. He was wrong.

Again, the faces of his bravest warriors flash in his mind. He wonders if they were scared as they entered that maze. He wonders if they regretted serving his empire. 

The buzzing in his head has gotten louder, and at last, his thirst quenched, he stops pushing it down. He’s not entirely surprised when he recognizes some of the voices, as they all come flooding in. There must be ten or twenty or a thousand of them, but he can pick out the ones of the soldiers he knew, the soldiers he fought with, fairly easily, even if he doesn’t quite understand what they’re saying. He guesses that the guilt has finally gotten to him. 

The sound of waves crashing onto a shore reaches him from somewhere, and he ignores the voices for a moment, trying to figure out where it is. He hikes through the forest he’s in (he doesn’t recognize this territory, but then again, it’s hard to think and he isn’t sure he’d recognize the edges of his empire if he were placed in them right now) and finds the ocean fairly quickly. There’s no ship. The sun beats down on him.

Have his people abandoned him here, on this island in the middle of nowhere?

He wonders what could have motivated them to come all the way out here and then just leave him. He thinks of sails, and-

“Sails,” he whispers. The voices laugh at him, call him crazy, mock his rasping voice, hoarse from disuse. “Guys,” he says. “Come on. I know I’m crazy, okay? I’m talking to the voices in my head right now. Of course I’m insane.”

He doesn’t pay attention to their responses - he’s busy trying to remember what, exactly, he told the soldiers. He knows that he tried to get his message across to them, but he doubts they understood. 

There isn’t anything on the beach, and he retreats back into the grove of trees that grow just beyond it.

“I seem to be somewhere tropical,” he says to the voices. “Do you guys happen to know where I am?”

Maybe some of the voices do, but their words are too fast and incomprehensible for him to piece together. He gives up on going to them for clues.

“What I really need right now,” he says. “Is some resources. Maybe I can stick around here for a while - it seems pretty nice, and get some stuff together. Then, I say we head back to my empire and find Phil, alright?”

The voices seem pretty on board with this plan - they don’t seem to be too bad, aside from their constant screaming.

“Anyhow,” Techno says. “I should probably set up a temporary house, right? Then we can start gathering resources. Maybe set up a bed or something.”

The voices agree, except for the last part, which is strange, but maybe they just don’t like sleeping or something.

He makes a fair amount of progress by the time the sun starts to set, at which point he heads back into his house. He hasn’t gotten enough wool to put together a bed, but he figures he can probably just wait out the night.

Apparently not - the voices scream and shout and call him boring and complain that they’re hungry. He can’t figure out what exactly it is they’re hungry for, until a monster appears near his house and they’re immediately calling for him to fight, for him to kill.

The voices call for blood as more monsters start to appear, and at last he oblidges them.

***

Technoblade continues to mine and gather resources well into the next day. He’s hesitant to go back to his empire without things to defend himself with, and until he figures out  _ where  _ he is, he’s happy to stay here. The island is nice, and surprisingly not completely overridden with monsters.

This eventually proves to be a problem. The voices, who originally seemed to be a slightly annoying, but benign, presence, seem to have a constant thirst that’s sated only by blood. He kills chickens for a while, and at first they seem satisfied by their panicked squawking and empty eyes, but they quickly grow bored. The monsters he kills at night satisfy them for a bit longer, but in the end, it becomes clear what they’re after: they want people.

He knows whose blood they want. He’s not prepared to give it to them yet. 

One cloudy evening, when their voices become too loud to bear, he builds himself a row boat and goes out into the ocean. He asks them what direction to go in, and follows their instructions until he finds ice bergs. He’s surprised he hadn’t thought of this earlier, though he suspects that they’d be less willing to help him before they realized how  _ boring  _ being on the island was.

Without his cape, the icy wind is able to tear into his skin, but he ignores it. He’s getting good at ignoring his problems.

He doesn’t know how far away he is from his castle, from his home, so he walks, and walks, and walks, and his feet go numb and his legs ache.

When he sees a statue in the distance, he isn’t sure whether or not he’s hallucinating. He can barely see its features or its shape from so far away, but he can tell that it’s wearing a crown. He isn’t sure who commissioned it.

He doesn’t know where he is, so the statue seems as good a place as any to aim for. His boots sink into the snow, and he isn’t sure exactly how far away it is. He’s exhausted, but afraid of sleeping in case he doesn’t wake up. The cold has started to wear on him, but he keeps going.

The voices have started encouraging him to kill the rabbits that sometimes skitter across his path. They’ve started to try to get him to pick fights with all the monsters he finds - in winter, the sun never rises, and it’s dark enough for monsters to appear in masses. He tries his best to avoid them.

Mostly, he’s just tired. He’s so tired.

When he gets too tired to go on, he builds himself a fire and waits for his freezing limbs to heat up enough for him to keep going. During the time it takes for his feet to unfreeze themselves, he leans against walls he’s built himself out of piled dirt, and talks. The voices like stories. He tells them about battles, and treaties being made and broken. He tells them about Phil. They like to hear about Phil.

He wonders how his empire is doing without him. A small, selfish part of him hopes that it isn't doing as well, that Phil can’t rule it the way he could. He’s sure that’s not the case - Phil was always milder than he was, despite the chaotic bloodthirstiness that ran deep in both of them (though looking back, Technoblade was never as hungry for blood then than he is now, with the voices.)

He misses Phil. He hopes that Phil knows that he’s alive. He hopes that Phil is alright with him gone.

He isn’t sure how much time has passed before he gets to the statue. It’s at the top of a steep hill, and he’s sweating and out of breath by the time he reaches it. From this close, he has to crane his neck to see the figure’s face. He recognizes himself, and recognizes that he’s facing east.

So Phil doesn’t think he’s dead, after all.

There is a bundle of dried up lavender resting at his feet, along with a crown, and his heart sinks as he picks them up both. Lavender for mourning royals, a crown that only Phil was supposed to have. Either Phil was killed, and his killer saw fit to leave the crown at Techno’s grave, or Phil stepped down and left the crown here. Either way, Phil is gone and there’s probably a new emperor ruling in his place.

He  _ could  _ go back to his castle - he can see the rooftops of his city from the top of this hill - and reclaim his title. He could try to take back his country from whatever chamberlain or noble was bold enough to step into his place after Phil left.

But there's no point. The Antarctic Empire wasn’t for him - it was for him and Phil. There wouldn’t be anything to gain from rebuilding it without Phil there.

He follows the path to the bottom of the hill. Protected from the wind, he takes a last look around.

He’ll look for Phil, he decides. He’ll find Phil, and then they can do whatever they want - war, countries, settling down.

He winks out the world, leaving only an imprint in the snow.


	4. I once knew a man who had fire in his eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His empire is gone, and so is his friend. With nowhere left to go, Technoblade wanders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this!!
> 
> Chapter title taken from The Curse of the Fold, by Shawn James.

Technoblade wanders. This isn’t the first time he’s drifted, but it’s the first time he hasn’t been aimless. This time, he’s looking for someone. He isn’t sure where Phil would have gone - maybe to another world of factions and countries warring, or back to his old private worlds to slave and build, erect monuments and palaces and homes. Maybe he too is drifting. Technoblade doesn’t know.

In the past, Phil had told Technoblade how he enjoyed the simplicity and the potential of those kinds of worlds, the way he could do anything he set his mind to, the way there was no one to interfere and no one to stop him completing his projects except himself.

If Phil went back to one of those worlds, Technoblade can’t follow him there, and there’s no way to reach him. Chances are, he’s blocked Techno’s contact, especially if he thinks Techno’s dead, but just in case, Technoblade sends him a few messages. He gets no response. Ah, well. Worth a shot.

With nowhere to go, Technoblade finds himself pulled back to Hypixel - that second home that’s never been quite a home. He remembers playing in the games and tournaments for hours and days, improving his technique and forcing himself to grow stronger and better. Before, he fought to train. Now, he doesn’t hold back - in the past, he mainly pushed people off ledges unless they had something he wanted, but the voices don’t like that. He leans towards quicker, more brutal deaths - a sword to the back, an arrow to the throat, an axe to the neck. The voices like it when there’s blood.

He avoids striking people in the torso, finds himself yearning for a stronger chest plate even if he already has the strongest one. He witnesses someone kill another player with three quick strokes to the stomach, and comes back to himself minutes later, cowering in a hidden part of the map, shaking.

He forces himself to keep playing. He needs to get stronger, he needs to overcome. If he doesn’t, what’s the point? Besides, the voices are happy. They love the blood and the gore, and he likes the lack of consequences. No one really dies in these games, not like in other worlds, so it doesn’t matter how many people he kills, how many corpses lie strewn across the map when he’s done. The respawn pains here aren’t even that bad. 

He keeps an ear out for rumors of angels or superhuman warriors or crushing battles, but there’s nothing. At first, he ventures out of the world each night, looking for anywhere Phil would have gone, but he doesn’t find anything, and after a while, he stops.

He starts to play the games without weapons - his voices have grown bored of him cutting through entire lobbies full of people. They like it when he has to fight. They like it when there’s a challenge. Often, he comes away from these games bruised, cuts stinging on his legs and face, blood drying quickly in his hair, full of memories of something else that could put up a fight. He doesn’t like it, but. He doesn’t exactly dislike it, either. There’s something freeing about feeling the pain he hid himself away from, about being bruised and continuing despite it all.

His voices are the ones who start up the chant. It happens after a particularly successful game - he’s managed to kill all eleven people without a weapon and escape practically unscathed. His voices, jubilant, drunk on all the tattered bodies and blood, shout the words: “Blood for the blood god!” He has to admit, he likes the sound of it. He raises his sword, unstained from the blood he’s spilled with his bare hands, and shouts the words to the still full lobby.

He tells himself he doesn’t enjoy the killing. The fighting, sure - it’s hard not to grow addicted to that rush of adrenaline at the start of a battle in which he’s hopelessly outnumbered, especially when he plays without a teammate. He enjoyed the fighting in the 

past too, this is nothing new. But the killing. The killing is a different matter. He’s always had a flair for the dramatics, what with his long hair and cape and crown, but he kills messily for the voices alone. The blood he spills is to feed them, and to stop himself from getting rusty.

Still, they’re an audience, and it’s hard not to start to like the things that his audience cheers for. “Blood for the blood god!” he calls after each game when he comes out victorious, until the words come easily to his lips, and people cower when they see him open his mouth.

***

There is news of a war on someone else’s server. Technoblade has heard of Dream - a fighter whose skills could even rival his own - but he hadn’t been aware of the server he owned until now. A war seems like the type of place Phil would want to hang around, even if it doesn’t seem like the type of war Phil would get involved in, considering the main point of conflict that Techno has heard about has been drugs.

Still, Technoblade decides he might as well drop in at some point. Even if Phil’s not there, he’s started to get bored of tossing people off floating islands and killing them over and over and over again. A war would be a nice change of scene for the voices.

As it turns out, he doesn’t even have to go to the server. One day, exiting one of his matches (he won, as always), he notices a familiar figure at the other end of the lobby. People have gathered around him, presumably to listen to whatever speech he seems to be giving.

Technoblade edges closer, trying to get a better view of the person. He wears the same robes and bucket hat, but his wings are torn and broken in one place (though the break seems to be old, and has since healed over), and he carries himself differently from the Phil Technoblade remembers.

But his voice is unmistakable, and the speech he gives seems like the type of thing Phil would say. Midway through, their eyes meet, and Phil breaks off, shock and something like disbelief or devastation flashes across his face. He pauses his speech, which, from what Technoblade can gather, is meant to recruit more people from the war he’s gotten himself tangled up in, and motions for Techno to follow him to a less crowded part of the lobby. 

Once there, he turns to Techno, an anguished look on his face.

“Are you - are you real?” Phil says. 

“I’m real, Phil,” he says.

“I thought you were - mate, I thought you were dead!” Phils tone is just short of being scolding, but his voice is also on the verge of breaking.

“Hey,” Techno says. “It’s alright. I’m alright. I’m here now.”

“How are you-” Phil pauses, takes a breath. “You were dead. You were  _ dead _ . How are you here?”

“Phil,” Technoblade says. “Take a deep breath. I’m here. I’m here.”

“I’m not-” Phil’s words are jumbled, and as Technoblade reaches up to put a hand on his shoulder, he jerks away. “Don’t - I’m not - you’re not-”

“I’m alive,” he says, forcing himself to speak slowly and calmly. He’s never seen Phil like this before. “My crew left me behind. There was… a misunderstanding with the sails, I think. I’m alive. It’s okay.”

“You were dead,” Phil whispers. “You were dead.”

Techno reaches out and embraces him, careful of his broken wings.

“I’m here now.”

“I left you,” Phil says into Techno’s shoulder, his voice almost strangled. “I left you and your - our nation - all alone. You were - I abandoned you.”

“It’s alright,” Technoblade says. “It’s alright. I’m okay. Everything is okay.”

Later, he’ll confess that he was never really abandoned, or alone, not when he woke up on that island surrounded by heat and wind and voices. Later, he’ll confess that he thinks he went insane on that first day, with nothing but his thoughts and the voices taunting him for blood. Later, Phil will hold him tight, enveloped by his broken wings, and promise never to let him go again.

Phil will confess that he didn’t  _ fall _ off the cliff that broke his wings and some of his spirit. Technoblade will run his hands along the ragged wings that Phil will never fly with again, and hate what he did to his best friend.

But now isn’t the time for any of that.

“You’re - how long - what did you do? When did you come back? Mate, your sails were black.”  
“My crew mates left me behind, I think,” Techno says. He still isn’t entirely clear what happened after they carried him out of the maze. “I was gravely injured. They tried to heal me with, uh, potions, but it didn’t take at first. I woke up alone and found my way back.”

“And I wasn’t there,” Phil says.

“You weren’t there,” Techno agrees.

Phil grabs his hand, grips it tightly, squeezing it as if to remind himself that Techno is alive, that he’s here.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“It’s okay,” Techno says. “It’s okay. I’m okay, see? It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Phil says.

“I would have left too, if you died. If I thought you’d died.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

Technoblade doesn't deny this.

“What have you been up to?” he asks instead. “Enlisting people for a war? Fighting over drugs? Should I stage an intervention for you?”

Phil laughs, wiping a tear from his eye.

“I’ve been helping Wilbur out, remember him? He’s fighting against some admin or something. He’s not allowed to have a drug empire, and I believe he got upset about that.”

Technoblade laughs.

“I’m sure you’ve got it covered,” he says. “But do you need any more warriors?”

Phil smiles.

“We could use a few,” he says.

They leave the world together this time, not letting go of each other as if afraid that if they look away, they won’t be able to find the other. They leave together, looking bright eyed towards a future stained red with the blood of their friends.


End file.
